Natural products chemistry and phytomedicine research in the new millennium: new developments and challenges

The rationalisation of the new multidrug and multitarget concept of therapy in classical medicine will have also great implication on the future basic research in phytomedicine and an evidence based phytotherapy. It requires a concerted cooperation between phytochemists, molecular biologists, pharmacologists and clinicians with the aim to use modern high-tech methods for the standardisation of phytopreparation, to integrate new molecular biological assays into the screening of plant extracts and plant constituents and to increase the efforts into the efficacy proof of phytopreparations by controlled clinical trials which should be paralleled or followed pharmacocinetic and bioavailability studies. One major concern will be to investigate the multivalent and multitarget actions of plant constituents and standardized extracts with the aim of rationalizing the therapeutic superiority of many plant extracts over single isolated constituents. The new strategies are demonstrated on several examples of the own research projects and those of other laboratories.